"Ladies and gentlemen, this plane has been taken over by the Movement for the Advancement of Democracy (MAD). Remain calm, we will not harm you. You will be told where the plane will land you," Richard Ogunderu, 19, announced to a confused cabin of passengers onboard Nigeria Airways flight WT470, heading from Lagos to Abuja, on October 25, 1993.

He had just graduated from secondary school and planned to continue his education in Canada. But right now, he was holding a plane hostage with Kabir Adenuga (22), Kenny Rasaq-Lawal (23), and Benneth Oluwadaisi (24).

Immediately they took over the plane, the hijackers poured petrol everywhere, on themselves and some of their terrified hostages. They found it too easy to smuggle the fuel on the plane because the walk-through metal detector door at the airport's domestic wing broke down in 1987 and no one bothered to fix it. It was the kind of luck the hijackers counted on to board with their deadly cargo—kegs of petrol in raffia bags, lighters, a canister of tear gas, jack knives, and guns they later claimed were fake. They were on a mission.

June 12

1993 was a big year for Nigeria. The Ibrahim Babangida regime had overstayed its welcome after almost ten years of the military dictator pushing the line on his promise of a return to democratic rule. His government eventually allowed the formation of only two political parties which contested governorship elections in December 1991 and parliamentary elections in July 1992. The building blocks for a return to democracy were set. All that was left was the presidential election in 1993.

The two men at the centre of that contest—MKO Abiola and Bashir Tofa—promised Nigerians a better life. Babangida would later cancel the election over alleged electoral irregularities, with Abiola in the lead.

Nigerians disagreed with the dictator and protested, demanding the winner be crowned. On August 26, 1993, with the annulment still in place, Babangida stepped down as Nigeria's head of state. He dumped a mess at the feet of Ernest Shonekan, who led the Interim National Government (ING). When he addressed Nigerians for the first time days later, Shonekan said it was important for the country to move on from June 12 as a united force. It was an impossible proposal.

Lagos to Niamey with the MAD Boys

The hijackers carefully selected their target—a plane carrying a high-profile group that would capture the government's attention. Flight WT470 was a goldmine. Among the 150 people onboard were three members of the Interim National Government; Brigadier-General Hafiz Momoh, the director-general of the National Youth Service Corps; Prof Jubril Aminu, a former oil minister; and Rong Yiren, the vice president of China.

Ogunderu and his crew wanted the pilots to fly to Frankfurt, Germany but the plane needed more fuel to make the journey. N'Djamena in Chad was the first option for a refuel mission, but they were refused a landing permit. Similar rejections followed from Gabon and Ghana before the plane ended up at the Diori Hamani International Airport in Niamey, the capital of the Republic of Niger, where the hijackers would stage their final stand.

Hours after landing, they freed 123 of the hostages, mostly women, children and foreigners like Yiren. The plan was to hold on to the Nigerian VIPs and squeeze the government. They released a couple more people the next day. Momoh was one of them because he was hypertensive and a hostage situation was not good for his heart. Despite their serious threats, the hijackers would later admit they did not want anyone to die on their watch. They only wanted to be heard.

The MAD Demands

The young hijackers made five clear demands in the initial hours of the hijack, as reported from the control tower in Niamey. They asked the Nigerian government to address the unresolved murder of Dele Giwa, the founding Editor-in-Chief of Newswatch Magazine. Giwa had been killed by a parcel bomb in 1986, and his assassins remain at large.

The hijackers also demanded clarity on the mysterious crash of a Lagos to Kaduna flight in 1992. The Lockheed C-130 Hercules had dropped out of the sky minutes after taking off with 160 passengers. The tragedy claimed the lives of a generation of military officers, yet no official explanation had ever been provided.

But what became the hijackers' most widely publicised demand was their focus on June 12. They demanded that the perpetrators of the election annulment be exposed and the true reasons behind the decision be made public. Finally, they insisted that MKO Abiola be recognised as Nigeria's president. If their demands were not met within 72 hours, they would burn the plane.

As negotiations between Nigérien officials and the hijackers unfolded, the Nigerian security services were doing some housekeeping of their own.

The MAD Mastermind

A week before the four hijackers struck, Jerry Yusuf walked into the office of the Nigerian Tribune newspaper and introduced himself as the leader of the Movement for the Advancement of Democracy (MAD). He was a cocoa businessman who had lived in Germany in the 1970s. He was unhappy that successive military coups stunted Nigeria's development since its independence and wanted a return to democracy. Yusuf was motivated by a spiritual force and was ready to die for his cause.

The Nigerian Tribune published the interview two days before the hijackers struck. So, he immediately became the public face of the attack. Nigerian security forces started hunting him.

What Came After

Around midnight early on October 28, 1993, Nigérien soldiers stormed the hijacked plane. The 72-hour deadline was about to expire and they could not take any chances.

Like a scene straight out of an action film, a hail of bullets rained. Ogunderu was hit but survived. Ethelbert Nwanze Igwe, who worked as an assistant purser on the plane, was not as lucky. He was the only fatal victim of the 1993 Nigeria Airways plane hijack.

The dramatic hijacking was just the beginning of another chaotic period for Nigeria. Three weeks later, General Sani Abacha overthrew Shonekan and the ING in a coup, returning Nigeria to a full military regime. Abiola challenged the regime a year later with a speech in Epetedo, declaring himself president. The government locked him up in prison where he remained till 1998 when he died. Abacha had died the previous month under mysterious circumstances.

The Nigérien government held onto the hijackers for prosecution. Nigeria's security forces caught up with Jerry Yusuf and extradited him to Niger to reunite with his collaborators. The gang finally left prison in 2002, two years after the mastermind was also released.

At their first public appearance upon returning to Nigeria, Ogunderu insisted the group was desperate to save the country from disintegration. He was planning to japa for his university education when he met Yusuf who convinced him to join the hijack party at the last minute. He accepted the invitation because, as he admitted in interviews years later, seeking greener pastures in other countries was not a long-term solution to Nigeria's problems. Fighting for change at home was.

The legacy of the hijackers in the history of civil disobedience in Nigeria sits in a complicated place. Given its extraordinary and unprecedented nature, the event has left a surprisingly limited mark on the public consciousness.

MAD's action was not without backlash. Many pro-democracy activists and public affairs commentators described it as irresponsible—even Abiola condemned it. And considering that an innocent bystander lost his life in the security response, the memory of the hijack is not without some taint.

The MAD Manifesto

The real legacy of the 1993 hijack is that an undercurrent flows from the Nigeria of that era to the one that exists today. As soon as the hijackers took control of the plane, they distributed handbills to their terrified hostages.

Here is a reproduction of the handbill, as published by the Nigerian Tribune on Wednesday, October 27, 1993:

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